


Coming Out vs. Peggy Carter

by sevenimpossiblethings



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7359124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenimpossiblethings/pseuds/sevenimpossiblethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That is, coming out via Peggy Carter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Out vs. Peggy Carter

**Author's Note:**

> For the Inception Bingo prompt, "coming out of the closet."

On screen, Peggy said, “ _You’re late_.” 

“Fuck me,” Ariadne blurted, and immediately wished she hadn’t. 

She’d been planning on how to tell Arthur for _weeks_ that, despite their parents’ half-teasing wishes, she was never going to marry him, as it turned out she was really hella gay, thank you very much. 

Arthur had been her best friend for the last five years, ever since he’d moved to town and been assigned the seat next to her in sixth grade science, and there was supposed to be some sort of gravity in a coming out, wasn’t there? A level of solemnity and thoughtfulness. They should have been in the basement, or her bedroom, or a secluded park corner, not Arthur’s living room (even though his parents were still at work), and Ariadne was supposed to say, “I have something to tell you....” 

That was how Arthur had told her he was bi, anyway: two years ago, after school on the bleachers. Arthur had given her a note the day before to schedule the meeting and everything. It wasn’t her fault she’d taken a little longer to figure it all out—fuck you, compulsory heterosexuality. Fuck you, heteropatriarchy. 

“Excuse me?” said Arthur. 

Maybe he thought she was referring to Rogers. But dammit, she _wasn’t_ , and she wanted him to know it. 

“Dibs on Peggy,” she said. 

“I’m pretty sure she would object to that. Nobody gets ‘dibs’ on her,” Arthur said. 

“In the fictional situation in which it is possible to call dibs on this particular fictional character, I call dibs on Peggy,” said Ariadne. 

“Okay,” said Arthur.

Ariadne huffed. Did Arthur get it? Did he understand what was happening in this moment? 

Ariadne picked up the remote from the coffee table and hit ‘pause.’ 

“Hey,” Arthur objected. 

“I’m gay,” Ariadne said. 

Arthur shifted a little on the couch so he could face her properly. 

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” said Arthur. She could hear the repressed laughter in his voice. 

“You jerk, you could at least pretend to be surprised,” said Ariadne. 

“You’ve always come with me to GSA,” said Arthur. 

“The ‘S’ is there for a reason,” said Ariadne. 

“Sorry,” said Arthur, actually appearing contrite now. “Congratulations. I’m really happy for you. We should do something to celebrate.” 

“Like a party?” Ariadne asked. 

She liked parties, Arthur much less so, so convincing him to co-host an event with her was always a victory, but she didn’t want some sort of coming out party (did people even do that? She didn’t think they did). She was mostly planning on just arriving back at school in the fall and… being out. Kind of like how this whole conversation had started, she realized. 

“How about a parade?” Arthur asked.

He passed her his phone. On the screen was the official website for their city’s Pride festival.

“You _sap_ ,” Ariadne said, and gave him a little shove. 

“Or we could not and—”

“Shut up, yes,” said Ariadne. “ _And_ you concede that I have dibs on Peggy.” 

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Fine. You have dibs on Peggy.” 

Ariadne reached for the remote again, rewinding the movie slightly before hitting ‘play.’

“ _You’re late_ ,” Peggy said. 

“Fuck me,” said Ariadne. 

 


End file.
